Lee Hutchinson has a problem. My fellow Ars writer is a man who loves to watch YouTube videos—mostly space rocket launches and gun demonstrations, I assume—but he never knows when his home Internet service will let him do so.

"For at least the past year, I've suffered from ridiculously awful YouTube speeds," Hutchinson tells me. "Ads load quickly—there's never anything wrong with the ads!—but during peak times, HD videos have been almost universally unwatchable. I've found myself having to reduce the quality down to 480p and sometimes even down to 240p to watch things without buffering. More recently, videos would start to play and buffer without issue, then simply stop buffering at some point between a third and two-thirds in. When the playhead hit the end of the buffer—which might be at 1:30 of a six-minute video—the video would hang for several seconds, then simply end. The video's total time would change from six minutes to 1:30 minutes and I'd be presented with the standard 'related videos' view that you see when a video is over."

Hutchinson, a Houston resident who pays Comcast for 16Mbps business-class cable, is far from alone. As one Ars reader recently complained, "YouTube is almost unusable on my [Verizon] FiOS connection during peak hours." Another reader responded, "To be fair, it's unusable with almost any ISP." Hutchinson's YouTube playback has actually gotten better in recent weeks. But complaints about streaming video services—notably YouTube and Netflix—are repeated again and again in articles and support forums across the Internet.

Why does online video have such problems? People may assume there are perfectly innocent causes related to their computers or to the mysterious workings of the Internet. Often, they're correct.

But cynical types who suspect their Internet Service Providers (ISPs) intentionally degrade streaming video may be right as well. No, your ISP (probably) isn't sniffing your traffic every time you click a YouTube or Netflix link, ready to throttle your bandwidth. But behind the scenes, in negotiations that almost never become public, the world's biggest Internet providers and video services argue over how much one network should pay to connect to another. When these negotiations fail, users suffer. In other words, bad video performance is often caused not just by technology problems but also by business decisions made by the companies that control the Internet.

Please wait. Keep waiting.

These business decisions involve "peering" agreements that Internet companies make to pass traffic from one to another and negotiations over caching services that store videos closer to people's homes so they can load faster in your browser. When Internet providers refuse to upgrade peering connections, traffic gets congested. When ISPs refuse to use the caching services offered by the likes of Google and Netflix, video has to travel farther across the Internet to get to its final destination—your living room.

The negotiations can lead to brinksmanship and bad blood. Recent public examples of such spats include:

November 2010: After Internet backbone provider Level 3 signs a deal with Netflix to distribute video, Comcast demands money from Level 3 for carrying traffic over the proverbial "last mile" to Comcast subscribers.

January 2011: European ISPs Deutsche Telekom, Orange (formerly France Telecom), Telecom Italia, and Telefónica commission a report saying companies like Netflix and Google's YouTube service should give ISPs a lot more money.

August 2011: Cogent, another Internet backbone provider that handles Netflix traffic, files a complaint in France against Orange, saying the ISP is providing inadequate connection speeds.

January 2013: Free, a French ISP, is accused of slowing down YouTube traffic by failing to upgrade infrastructure (but is later cleared of intentionally degrading YouTube traffic by the French regulator). Free also temporarily blocks ads on YouTube and other video services by sending an update to its modems.

January 2013: Orange and Google have a similar dispute, with Orange CEO Stephane Richard claiming victory. He says that Google is paying Orange to compensate the operator for mobile traffic sent from Google servers.

January 2013: Time Warner refuses Netflix's offer of a free caching service that would provide better performance to Netflix users on Time Warner's network.

June 2013: Cogent accuses Verizon of allowing "ports" between the two providers to fill up, degrading Netflix performance for Verizon customers.

July 2013: The European Commission opens an antitrust probe into whether ISPs abused market positions in negotiations with content providers, and it searches the offices of Orange, Deutsche Telekom, and Telefónica. Separately, the French government demands details of interconnection agreements involving AT&T and Verizon.

In the most extreme cases, large Internet companies stop passing traffic to one another entirely. (This happened in 2005 with France Telecom and Cogent, in 2005 with Cogent and Level 3, and in 2008 with Sprint and Cogent.) But recent disputes have been less likely to lead to a complete severing of ties. "That type of reaction to a policy is becoming less common, possibly because it's so easy to publicize it," Reggie Forster, director of network engineering at XO Communications, told Ars. "They tend to want to keep that quiet."

Instead, network operators can degrade traffic by failing to upgrade connections without severing them entirely. The public won't realize that's what's going on unless negotiations become so contentious that one party makes them public—or a government decides to investigate.

Degraded connections disproportionately affect the quality of streaming video because video requires far more bits than most other types of traffic. Netflix and YouTube alone account for nearly half of all Internet traffic to homes in North America during peak hours, according to research by SandVine. And customers are far more likely to be annoyed by a video that stutters and stops than by a webpage taking a few extra seconds to load.

To get to the root of these problems, we need to take a step back and talk about the Internet itself. The very name "Internet" suggests many networks interconnecting, but few people know how the terms of these connections are negotiated. Understanding the business relationships that allow the Internet to exist in its present form is crucial to understanding the subtle and not-so-subtle ways Internet companies can bring your YouTube and Netflix videos to a slow stutter.

Step one here is transparency. Before we impose new mechanisms by legislating, we should allow detailed study of the ones that are in place. To do that we may need legislation that states simply: All such peering agreements, including all of the technical and financial terms, shall be filed as public documents with the FCC at least 7 days prior to taking effect.

This accomplishes two things: It allows third-party analysis, and it provides early warning of change to affected parties.

I do sometimes wonder if the way modern video steaming players work might also be to blame. Depending on the service I'm watching it seems that a video will only download to a certain point then stop, assuming that more will be loaded as I watch. When network congestion or ISP fighting or whatever happens, and that video doesn't get loaded, me, the paying customer, is left with a bad experience. It makes me miss the old days before all this streaming, when you could just pause the video for a few minutes and be sure the whole thing would load in.

My father has Charter and hates it. He has connectivity problems, streaming video problems, name server problems, etc. etc. Charter claims he's at the extreme edge of their territory and there is nothing they can do because he's not worth it to them. He puts up with it because he hates AT&T DSL even more, they don't offer Uverse in his neighborhood.

I have Charter, and I love it. I never have any problems and I can stream multiple HD streams from Youtube or Amazon any time of the day or night. Every year it seems, they upgrade my speed for free and, in fact, I pay less now than when I signed up five years ago. They never notified me about that, the bill was just suddenly lower. (AT&T calls me about Uverse every now and then. When I tell them what I'm getting from Charter they thank me for my time and hang up.)

as always, you can't charge Netflix for using your ISP any more than AMC can charge Transformers for using their theater. Netflix is why people use your product. Netflix could vary well charge you for the privilege of it being an option to your customers. like Transformers does.

Arg, when the government decided to give cable and telephone companies oligopolies, I don't think anyone envisioned them basically acting like trolls, trying to collect tolls from any network traffic that passes through to their customers who they supposedly have the best interest in heart for.

My father has Charter and hates it. He has connectivity problems, streaming video problems, name server problems, etc. etc. Charter claims he's at the extreme edge of their territory and there is nothing they can do because he's not worth it to them. He puts up with it because he hates AT&T DSL even more, they don't offer Uverse in his neighborhood.

I have Charter, and I love it. I never have any problems and I can stream multiple HD streams from Youtube or Amazon any time of the day or night. Every year it seems, they upgrade my speed for free and, in fact, I pay less now than when I signed up five years ago. They never notified me about that, the bill was just suddenly lower. (AT&T calls me about Uverse every now and then. When I tell them what I'm getting from Charter they thank me for my time and hang up.)

ISPs can be schizophrenic.

I agree. I've had nothing but good service in the 10 years I've had Charter. Maybe it's because I live in the a city of 3500 that I can stream HD videos all day long with only a rare buffer now and then. I hear that they also have a data cap of 250GB that I know I've exceeded more than a few times, but I haven't heard anything from them about it. Perhaps I should just count my blessings and hope things don't change.

All it takes is anti-trust laws. If content services were not allowed to be ISPs, and ISPs were not allowed to be last-mile providers, the free market would straighten this whole mess out - capitalism works, if properly regulated.

i think this shows that the limitering factor is no longer the users home internet just look at it here in iceland where the top speeds for home internet is around 400 Mb/s only thing is missing from this article is maybe little about internet exchanges

Felten warns that forcing companies like Netflix to pay all the last-mile ISPs to get their content to users would prevent future Netflixes from even existing. "If by default a peering relationship has to be paid by the online service provider, then the next Facebook will never exist, and the next YouTube will never exist because from day one they will be straddled with a cost they will be unable to bear," Felten told Ars.

Why do I feel it's the exact opposite? That if the Googles and Facebooks of the world did pay their fair share, there would be more opportunity for the little guy. Make them pay, and make the ISP charge me less is the real solution.

They are paying their fair share. They are paying their ISP just like you are. Time Warner, Verizon, etc. want them to pay twice: once, to their ISP to carry their data to your ISP, and then again, to your ISP for your ISP to deliver the data to you.

"But instead of the companies sharing equal costs, Verizon wants Cogent to pay because more traffic is flowing from Cogent to Verizon than vice versa."

This seems counterintuitive. Most consumer data usage is download, so if C is shipping more data to V than V is shipping to C, then V's customers are getting more value from services that C routes to V. If V got in a snit and cut off C, its customers would seem to have more to complain about than C's would in a reciprocal cutoff, or more of its customers would be complaining.

Oh Lord yes, drives me Nuts. I'm doing ok now but for a while in the Spring I think it was I simply had to drop everything to 240p to get anything going. What a nightmare have a 50Mb Fios connection and not even being able to get basic 480p let alone ANY HD videos to play on Youtube. Knowing I'm being screwed with just makes the experience all the more frustrating.

Felten warns that forcing companies like Netflix to pay all the last-mile ISPs to get their content to users would prevent future Netflixes from even existing. "If by default a peering relationship has to be paid by the online service provider, then the next Facebook will never exist, and the next YouTube will never exist because from day one they will be straddled with a cost they will be unable to bear," Felten told Ars.

Why do I feel it's the exact opposite? That if the Googles and Facebooks of the world did pay their fair share, there would be more opportunity for the little guy. Make them pay, and make the ISP charge me less is the real solution.

They are paying their fair share. They are paying their ISP just like you are. Time Warner, Verizon, etc. want them to pay twice: once, to their ISP to carry their data to your ISP, and then again, to your ISP for your ISP to deliver the data to you.

Yet both sides are making billions in the process where the actual transit providers don't seem to be making as much. The problem as I see it if I were to start my own channel I'd end up paying 100x more than what Google is paying for the same bandwidth, yet the actual marginal cost is the same. The fact there a billions of users and only 100's of actual services is a bit uneven. Unless you reach critical mass your marginal costs are never going to be the same because no one will peer with you.

"But instead of the companies sharing equal costs, Verizon wants Cogent to pay because more traffic is flowing from Cogent to Verizon than vice versa."

This seems counterintuitive. Most consumer data usage is download, so if C is shipping more data to V than V is shipping to C, then V's customers are getting more value from services that C routes to V. If V got in a snit and cut off C, its customers would seem to have more to complain about than C's would in a reciprocal cutoff, or more of its customers would be complaining.

What Verizon is omitting in that argument is the fact that the sole reason for the data flow relationship between the two is demand from Verizon's network.

Verizon is acting like Cogent is saying "Verizon, please send this large amount of data across your network for us", whereas in reality, Verizon is saying "Cogent, please retrieve this large amount of data over your network for us".

Why do I feel it's the exact opposite? That if the Googles and Facebooks of the world did pay their fair share, there would be more opportunity for the little guy. Make them pay, and make the ISP charge me less is the real solution.

I'd say exactly the opposite: if I'm the one asking for the data to be delivered, why shouldn't I be the one footing the bill? It's not like Netflix or Youtube shovels data down to my computer on a whim, they're sending only because I asked them to. And delivery of data is exactly what I'm paying my ISP for. Why then should Netflix and Google foot the bill for providing the service I'm paying for? And I am paying it, witness that bill I get from my ISP every month for Internet service. If my connection and it's use isn't being paid for, then what exactly am I paying for when I pay that bill? If the amount is too low to cover the ISP's costs, then perhaps the ISP is charging customers too little.

Ah, and there we have it: the ISPs want more money for providing Internet service, but they don't want to raise prices for their customers to meet costs plus their desired profits. Well, life sometimes forces tough decisions on us all.

I can attest to this happening in Aus. Based on my experience, iPrimus, Telstra etc are definitely throttling users. Often the dead giveaway is when you run their own speed tests and it's fast but then you hit youtube and it's game over. Oh sure, there's other overheads that are gonna naturally reduce speeds, but to less than 30% of what you paid for?

This made me quite happy to be an RCN customer: I didn't even realize the situation had become that bad.

After repeated over-billing in New Haven we instituted a Comcast-is-not-an-option policy in DC, ending up with better service, a lower bill and no contract — the service reflects the fact that, unlike most of the US, there's actual competition.

Unlike in mobile, simply banning contracts wouldn't help since the infrastructure is expensive – I really wish we'd get to the regulated utility model for whoever owns the cabling so the content services could actually be a free market.

I remember, when Net Neutrality would come up, there were always a couple of people who would say things like this:

"Why are you so concerned about it? Nothing's actually happened. No companies are trying to stop the transmission of content. Wait until there's proof of something before we start making laws against these things."

Take a look at the black bar. This should represent your real speed. I have a 50 Mbps FTTH connection and now the black bar shows just 11 Mbps... and I have a lot of videos who stopped when I'm watching. With speedtest.net I'm sure I receive the 50 Mbps, but for some reason (maybe those pointed at the article) I will have to live with that.

On the YouTube issues mentioned early in the article: I have them too, but only with certain browsers. I've taken it as one of their recent updates screwed up how they serve video so non-Webkit browsers can't handle it as well.

I really miss being able to 'pause' a Youtube video, leave it overnight (or whatever) and know that in the morning it would be fully downloaded and buffered, no problems. There doesn't seem to be any way to do that any more.

The thing is, even if ISP double their infrastructure capacity, we will somehow find a way to eat it up. It is mind boggling how Netflix and YouTube alone constitute 50% of the Internet usage in the US.

Great journalism! This is the kind of articles that keep me coming back to Ars everyday.

My internet provider (laughingly called that) is the justly vilified Comcast. Their service is horrid, their prices lamentable and they still strive to sell us cable and phone while those were the final straws that broke my last bit of patience with their company. They have an effective monopoly here because Verizon and ATT both reneged on their promises of fiber to the home.

Comcast made no such promise but they did insist on my paying a maintenance fee for the modem that I paid for. When confronted they Customer Insulting Service constantly commented on how the customer was very important to Comcast even though they believed that renting me my own equipment was a proper course of action. When they finally realized that yes one is not able to rent someone else equipment back to them there were quick to remove the charge. But they had to be told why first. Ignorance runs rampant through that organization following on the heels of a deep seated greed.

In my opinion it is past time that Internet service became a utility. One that is run as a non-profit, utterly separate from government and corporate influence. One that guarantees and provides service to everyone. It needs to be socialized and subsidized by everyone. Some things in this world should not be in the hands of naked greed, whether it is money or power. Only with everyone benefitting and none beholden to those interests can society and the world grow how it needs to.

On the YouTube issues mentioned early in the article: I have them too, but only with certain browsers. I've taken it as one of their recent updates screwed up how they serve video so non-Webkit browsers can't handle it as well.

I really miss being able to 'pause' a Youtube video, leave it overnight (or whatever) and know that in the morning it would be fully downloaded and buffered, no problems. There doesn't seem to be any way to do that any more.